What Britain Has Done 1939-1945

by Richard Overy

In this astonishing portrait of a society at total war, we the total casualties sustained by the UK up to the beginning of May 1945 amounted to close on one million. Of this total 746,109 were suffered by the Armed Forces (228,383 killed, 59,476 missing, 274,148 wounded and 184,102 prisoners of war). Between November 1943 and March 1944, Berlin was the most heavily bombed city in the world, well over 33,000 tons of bombs having been dropped on it by the R.A.F. alone. During the first 4 weeks of the continental campaign [in North-West Europe] no fewer than 1,000,000 men, 183,500 vehicles, and 650,000 tons of stores were landed in Normandy. During this period the average daily number of convoys going across the Channel was 16. London was bombed every night except three from the 7th September to the end of November 1940. During the blitz the Post Office was still handling 10,000,000 packets and 500,000 parcels daily.

Hardcover

First published May 1, 2008

About the author

Richard James Overy is a British historian who has published extensively on the history of World War II and the Third Reich.

Educated at Caius College, Cambridge and awarded a research fellowship at Churchill College, Professor Overy taught history at Cambridge from 1972 to 1979, as a fellow of Queens' College and from 1976 as a university assistant lecturer. In 1980 he moved to King's College London, where he became professor of modern history in 1994. He was appointed to a professorship at the University of Exeter in 2004.

His work on World War II has been praised as "highly effective in the ruthless dispelling of myths" (A. J. P. Taylor), "original and important" (New York Review of Books) and "at the cutting edge" (Times Literary Supplement.)[

Reviews

[Ben Walker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A frank statement of facts about the performance of Britain at war, devoid of nationalist fervour or a desire to downplay our efforts - it's a useful book. The forward by Mr Overy is most useful as it sobers the reader from what are some... disproportional focuses in the rest of the book, originally produced, for what it's worth, by the then Ministry of Information.

From a design perspective, the use of the font style (Futura) popular during the 30s and 40s is a nice touch, though the maps seem far too simplistic for my liking. A lot more of them and a lot more detail on that front wouldn't go amiss!

[Iain Watson]

What Britain Has Done 1939-1945 by Richard Overy (2007)